She draws much of her influence from her close relationship with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, who represents Taiwan’s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party and for whom she once served as spokesperson. In addition, Ms. Hsiao counts Mr. Bolton and Mr. Biden’s top official of the National Security Council for Asia, Kurt Campbell, as friends for decades.
For years, US officials barred Ms. Hsiao’s predecessors from visiting the White House and State Department. These guidelines have relaxed over time, and she now regularly, albeit discreetly, visits the West Wing and Foggy Bottom.
She’s an undisguised regular on Capitol Hill as she sat next to Kevin McCarthy, then-Republican House Speaker, for a livestream China Task Force discussion of his caucus last summer. “She really has the trust of the people here in Washington,” said Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund, who has also known Ms. Hsiao for many years.
Sitting in an elegant lobby at Twin Oaks with a grand piano and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a rolling lawn, Ms. Hsiao described her position as “legally unofficial.”
She blames Beijing for that. “Taiwanese not only resent being bullied, we also resent being told we can’t have friends,” she said.
It helps, Ms. Hsiao said, that Washington’s appreciation “for Taiwan as a democracy, as a force for good, and as a true partner of the United States” has grown. At the same time, the threat of a Chinese government talking about taking over Taiwan weighs heavily.
